


the name of winter

by Self_san



Series: the waning of winter [2]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-23
Updated: 2013-02-23
Packaged: 2017-12-03 07:27:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Self_san/pseuds/Self_san
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is Jack Frost. </p>
<p>The Man in the Moon told her so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the name of winter

When she woke up, the night was still.

Still and _quiet_ , utterly, utterly silent. And dark.

The darkness, like a titan, eating her whole world--

She broke the ice, the layer parting like an eggshell. Crystals tangled in her eyelashes, the heavy wet weight of her hair--

The moon shone overhead, a huge, bright globe of pale, luminous grey. It cast silvery light over the ground, the pale blue beneath her feet. Her toes were frosted with white, and she ran a finger, a long, pale, alien finger, through the rime, curiously scrapping it with the small crescent of her nail.

She was sitting. When had she sat up?

She couldn’t remember, and her eyes were drawn back up into the sky, and there--the moon was so full, she had never--

She was standing, and her hands were in the air, reaching, reaching, up into the glittering night, the stars points of impossible, impossible light--

_You are Jack Frost_ says the moon.

It’s voice is so wide inside her head, filling the space between her ears, and it’s like a heavy hand, so massive and _great_ and so comfortably cool.

Then the moon is silent, and she, _Jack Frost, my name--my name is Jack Frost_ \--is left alone in the silence of the night.

The moon never speaks to her again.

*

When she cries, alone and afraid and confused, tucked into the hollow of a tree, it _snows_ \--great, drifting flakes of cold cottony down. White fills the world, as she sobs into her hands. Her head hurts, and her cheeks.

Why can no one see her?

The memory of _parting_ , of something being pulled apart inside of her body as the people _walked through her_ , fills her mind, a _terrifying_ memory, but one of the only ones that she _has_.

Her name is Jack Frost.

Her hands tighten on the length of wood, the crooked branch that she had woken up with, and the memory of _flying_ , laughingly soaring through the night sky, fills her with joy, quiet, breathless _joy_.

Jack Frost stops crying, wiping at her cheeks gingerly, her fingers and cheeks cold, her tears little droplets of ice, frozen solid in her grasp. She lets them fall as she stands, the fresh snowfall crisp underfoot. A pair of soft shoes, familiar and well-worn.

She takes a breath, and the winter air fills her lungs and heart, and she squares her jaw in a move that might once have been familiar but is now new. The breath goes on, and her toes lift from the ground as she becomes as light as the air in her body, her pale white hands wrapping around the frost-rimmed length of her staff--

She flies.

*

It is years before she, before Jack, because she _is_ Jack Frost, the man in the moon had _told_ her so, notices what she looks like.

It was strange--shouldn’t she have thought of it earlier, _of_ _wondered_ earlier?

But no, she had been too _busy_ \--flying, laughing, bringing snow and chill to the children who couldn’t see her, biting at their little noses and icing the hills for their sleds.

(And also, also too, laying those few, those precious, rare _few_ , those children who had _given_ _up_ and walked into the eye of her storm, a place to rest their tired heads, a place to close their eyes and find peace, and a blanket of snow to cover them in comfort that, after, after they were--

Jack gave them the blanket that became their winding sheet.

But those were few times, times that the joy and laughter of the others made up for.)

But Jack had never once, in all of those years, wondered what she looked like.

Jack knew she was a _she_ , of course she was a _she_ , of course, and Jack _knew_ that her hair was long and _pale_ , because it was forever tangling around her cheeks and ears, wisps of white as stiff as ice and just as filmy flying around her head as the Wind carried her to and fro.

Jack knew she wore trousers, _pants_ , because they were _short_ , like she had outgrown them at some time, and they were tight around her thin hips and loose around her calves. (Reason for the leather strings, she had figured.) Jack knew that her shirt was too-big, soft and worn almost _away_ in some spots, as thin and as light as air, and that it gaped around her collar, the ties long gone. Jack knew that her vest, a leather vest with loose, clumsy stitching, was just as _wide_ as her shirt, as though she had stolen them from a _giant_.

The cloak, the short cloak tied around her shoulders, with its deep, fur-lined hood, was the only thing that really _fit_ \--it molded around her shoulders and, thought it was frosted just the same as the rest of her clothing, it was _right_ \--right in a way that nothing _else_ was. It was _hers_ , not a giant’s cast-offs.

And, last but not least, Jack knew that her staff helped her _work_ \--helped her call the snow and ride the Wind, frost glass and slick the paths.

But now, Jack wants to know _more_ , for the first time, she thinks about what she must _look_ _like_ , as her fingers ghosting over her cheeks and lips and her eyes fluttering shut.

Jack has heard things, when she traveled, listening to more than just the whistling of the Wind. She has _heard_ how the older girls talked, straightening their hair around their rosy cheeks, their nose blushed with cold, how their eyes cast to the side, to look at the boys, those ones _almost_ too old to be playing in the snow.

Yes, she saw, and she heard.

Oh, you look so pretty today, Tabitha, really, you have finally grown into your mama’s chin!

or _That frock brings out your comely eyes, dear_!

A thousand endearments, passed from girl to girl and woman to woman, and now Jack _notices_ these things--how some of the girl’s dresses are nicer, how rich the fur that lines their mittens is, how stiff the lace that rims their petticoats--

And wonders.

*

It’s easy enough, to find a home rich enough to have what she needs.

She tries, _tried_ , to craft one from ice, pure, thin ice, so glossy and perfect that she had been sure it _would_ \--

But it _hadn’t_ worked.

So now, here she is, wiggling her fingers into the crack of a window, eyes carefully closed to help her concentrate--and the window pops open, lined with ice.

Jack takes an excited breath, feeling the Wind tremble along her skin with the same feeling.

Jack bites her lip, and concentrates again--this time, she aims to wrap as much of her _cold_ into her skin as she can, muffling, covering the chill of her spirit like pulling on a glove.

It’s an odd feeling, but it works, and the Wind lessens, quiets, and the snow slows in its fall. Jack creeps through the darkened house.

It is quiet, the servants and masters asleep one and all, and Jack dances on tiptoes up the stairs, to the ladies parlor, and then inside.

As she had seen earlier in the day, the mirror is tucked into a desk drawer, wrapped in soft velvet. Its handle is smooth, cold silver, and Jack pulls it out, unwrapping the treasure carefully.

And stops.

Her reflection looks back at her, her mouth open wide to show sparkling teeth, lips pale. She has a narrow chin, and a hand has come up to trace along the line. Her cheeks are high and white, and her lashes are a dark fringe in the light of the moon, shinning through the parlor.

Her hair, like she had known, is the white of ice, and her brows are oddly dark, like her lashes.

Her eyes are the brightest, purest blue.

Jack stares, at this stranger in the looking glass, at the delicate doll-like face, and feels her stomach hollow out with _heat_ and fear.

She doesn’t know her own reflection, doesn’t recognize her nose nor the bow above her lips.

Did she get her brows from her mother? Is her nose like her father’s?

Who _is_ she?

The earlier wonder and excitement is gone.

Panicked and choking, Jack drops the mirror back into the drawer with shaking hands, recovering it with its fine wrapping, and _flies_ , down the stairs, through the kitchen, and back out the window.

Flees.

In the morning, there will be path of melted ice from where she flew.

The maid will shake her head and sent one of the other girls to mop it up before the masters wake.

It will be as though it was never there.

*

Sleep, though it doesn’t visit but once a year, comes on silent, creeping toes.

It comes with the spring, the melting of her carefully crafted hills and frosted windows. It comes with the budding of the flowers and the new, green thing sprouting from the soft ground.

And Jack _can_ appreciate the beautify of the disappearing frost, can look at the bright, fresh colors dotting the hillsides and the sweet, warm breezes dancing through the dripping trees, and say, huh, this is pretty.

But then the Wind begins to whisper, softly, in her ear, _now, go now, we will dance later, child. Go_.

And Jack’s limbs become heavy and cumbersome, _unfamiliar_.

Her feet grow clumsy and her head _aches_ , and, for the first few years, she doesn’t _understand_ \--why, _why_ does she have to go?

It comes with time, as most things do.

She _sleeps_ because it is _summer_ , and she is a thing of _winter_ , a thing of the cold and the frost and the _chill_ , and she has no place in the word of warmth and melting sunshine.

So she sleeps, and waits for the cold to come again.

She flies to the north, the far, far north, where humans fear to tread, where the cold is year-round. But even then, she can’t stave off sleep.

She goes to what she jokingly calls her ‘summer home,’ a hollowed out ledge deep within a frozen crevasse. There, where it is comfortably cold and the sun doesn’t reach, does Jack sleep in her bed of soft snow, dry and cool and crisp, and waits.

Waits.

*

Come autumn, when the heat begins to wane, she wakes to a world in need of her touch.

She goes, laughing, and paints the trees red with a finger, chills the breeze with her breath. She spins her staff and brings the snow and the frost, and the world is right.

But she is _lonely_.

Lonely.

*

Then it’s 1968, and everything changes.


End file.
